Workforce Analytic Approaches to Find Degrees of Freedom in the EV Transition

This report represents a 12-week effort for the US Department of Energy Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains to characterize the outlook for workforce transition pathways for incumbent workers affected by energy transition, and for workers entering new jobs. We focus on automotive production workers potentially disrupted by the transition from ICEVs to EVs. We also characterize the relative abundance of occupational skills to meet regional EV production needs, both as a source of competition with transitioning automotive workers and as an overall constraint on successful capacity-building for the EV industry. <br><br>The methodology we apply can be extended to inform analysis of skill supply and workforce transition conditions for other critical industries in the energy transition. Such industries may compete for skills and serve as demand sources for displaced legacy industry skill sets. We leverage this cross-industry capability to consider the transition opportunities presented specifically by growth in the heat pump, solar panel manufacturing, and transformer industries (HSTs).<br><br>We find that strong industry-associated wage premia for the highest-wage automotive production occupations may present a significant barrier to occupational transitions for disrupted workers. Our work finds examples of potential “soft landing” opportunities for some automotive occupations. Less specialized occupations with lower wages appear to have a lower industry premium, and hence a closer match with the wage distribution of alternative occupations whose skill requirements make them plausible transition candidates. We find that certain automotive production occupations in the same geography as anticipated HST production demand have promising skill similarities and enjoy competitive wage positions relative to outside occupations that could also be candidates for a skills-match with HST requirements.<br><br><br>Insights from this report will enable decision makers to identify key skill gaps to close in facilitation of workforce transitions, as well as choice margins such as geographic co-location and wage incentives that are vital to creating transition conditions both feasible and desirable to workers.